Review of Invisible Boys: Geraldton not always presented in positive light in heartfelt coming-of-age drama

Geraldton is a living and breathing character in its own right in Invisible Boys. The city and its surrounds look great on screen, with the series beautifully shot, but that doesn’t mean Geraldton is always presented through the rosiest of lenses. Gero has more of an antagonist’s role, if anything. As fans of Holden Sheppard’s award-winning debut novel will know, one of the main characters, Charlie Roth (Joseph Zada), a wannabe punk rock star, hates his home town and wants nothing more than to escape its small-town clutches. A tourism ad it may not be, but it does ring true. I can recall being a teenager with a yearning to leave Geraldton and see what else was out there. I think it’s natural to have a love-hate relationship with one’s home town, especially as a teenager. But as life goes on, and as Charlie’s character develops, you learn the town is just a scapegoat for bigger issues. Invisible Boys starts when Charlie comes out as gay on social media after he is caught with a married man. It’s a catalyst for his story and those of three other characters who, like Charlie, are queer but, unlike him, are hiding their true selves. There’s the nerd Zeke (Aydan Calafiore), the perfect student and perfect son in a conservative Italian family; Kurt or “Hammer” (Zach Blampied) the Indigenous footy jock who’s on the verge of being drafted into the AFL; and farmer Matt (Joe Klocek) who is Charlie’s love interest. The more the series progresses, the more you care about these boys and want to see them happy. But you know their search for identity is not going to be easy, with many prejudices, cultural, religious, peer and familial obstacles in their way. It’s unflinching in many ways, and the sex scenes are often raw and graphic, which will no doubt be confronting for some, but serve to move the story forward. Director Nicholas Verso has said he still remembers the “shot of adrenaline” he felt as a gay teen watching the 1998 Australian film Head On, starring Alex Dimitriades, and he wanted to create this generation’s version of that. He doesn’t shy away from that goal, and I think this series will resonate heavily with the LGBTQIA+ and teenage community. But I believe its reach will go much further than that. Whether you’re a parent of a teenager, have a teenager in your life, remember what it was like to be a teenager, or you’re just a fan of quality drama, this series doesn’t deserve to be pigeonholed. It deals with compelling and important subjects in sensitive and authentic ways, with much of the heavy lifting up to the “core four” cast of relatively unknown young actors. You get the feeling they won’t be unknown or “invisible” for too much longer. Zada, with his distinctive voice, is particularly impressive in a tour de force performance, giving off vibes of a young, scrawny Heath Ledger; while Calafiore is a joy to watch as Zeke, portraying his internal struggles and transformation with believability and a quiet integrity. Blampied is equally compelling as a bullying jock whose macho veneer slowly crumbles. Klocek is a bit of an enigma for most of the series, but his story will truly break your heart in episode nine. It’s an incredible feat the core four more than hold their weight against the supporting cast of acting veterans, including Pia Miranda, David Lyons, Hayley McElhinney and Shareena Clanton. The soundtrack is killer and also an important part of the story. Just wait for Zada’s haunting rendition of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Into My Arms — it’s a spine-tingling highlight. As a local, it is surreal (and at times distracting) to see so much of Geraldton and surrounds on screen. From the foreshore and Dome Cafe, and the Ocean Centre Hotel to Hungry Jack’s, from Yamaji Art to the Rec Ground, from Port Gregory’s Pink Lake to St Lawrence’s (which they have changed into a high school). Even the Guardian rates a mention. The story is set in 2017 at the time of the same-sex marriage plebiscite, and the pressures and prejudices faced by the characters makes you think how far we’ve really come and how far we’ve got to go to be a truly progressive, tolerant and accepting society. Invisible Boys takes you on an emotional rollercoaster and by the end, they will have made you laugh, cry, cringe, gasp and yell. You hope for and cheer for these characters, that they will get their chance to ride off into the sunset happy with who they are. At its heart, it’s a story about those who feel they don’t belong — and most of us can relate to that at some stage in our lives.